FOR FANS OF: Bob Dylan, Phoebe Bridgers, Hozier
Mae Krell, a 21-year old singer/songwriter from Washington, DC, released track "are you sure?" on March 5th, 2021, which follows their 2020 releases of "home," "wash," and "garden." "are you sure?" is a soft, indie track, one full of raw emotion and breathtaking vocals.
"are you sure?" was written around the time of Mae's two-year sobriety anniversary, and in the track, they're uncertain about their current reality - "...feeling as though they were stuck in the same place and failing to improve despite being consciously aware that they were, in fact, in a much better place than before." It's a sad, emotional track, one that makes me think of my own struggles with mental illness. I have bipolar disorder, and often feel as though I haven't improved with it over the many years, but I definitely have, and yet, it's still very hard and almost unbearable to handle sometimes. Progress is great, but my mind often doesn't see anything I've accomplished - with my mental well-being or otherwise - as real progress. "Its been three days and I've lost my way again / A weeks gone by and I feel my face again / And I wonder why/ I wonder why / I'm in the same place again." The cycling between depression, mania, and feeling nothing at all is something that I, at 22 years old, still haven't figured out the secret to handling. I'm often finding myself waking up and wondering why I feel so sad, and then a few weeks will have gone by and it's like it never even happened, I feel my face again and everything is fine.
"And I ask myself / Was it ever? / Was it ever? / And I ask myself / Are you sure? / Was it ever?" This verse also hits me quite hard - with bipolar disorder, I constantly question my emotions. Are they real, or, are they just a result of some chemical mishap in my brain again? Can I really trust how I feel to be true, can I be sure? I don't know, truthfully.
The next verse dips into their struggle with sobriety - "Its been a month / And I miss your touch / And I'm going through my bags / Looking for the crumbs / But there's a reason I haven't found them." I personally can't relate in meaning of sobriety, but if you infer that line as missing self-destructive behaviors, like chopping all my hair off or drinking too many energy drinks, then yeah, I definitely can. Bipolar disorder unfortunately is something that can't be cured, only managed. I've struggled with it since puberty, and over the years it's become harder and harder to handle, the episodes feeling more intense & more constant. But over 2020, as quarantine set in, I decided I would make bigger efforts to manage it better, to feel good more often than not, for myself, and because when live music ever makes its full return, I want to be on the road, touring with a band. But I can't really achieve that if I'm not as mentally healthy, or stable as I should be, so I've been trying to get better. It's been a year since covid came to the US, a year since I decided to formally make mental health recovery my goal, and I believe I've definitely made huge strides toward it - but, much like in sobriety, relapse tends to happen on the path of recovery, which is okay, it happens, but I'm my biggest critic. It's all too easy to slip into self-destructive behaviors over doing the harder thing, which is making good choices & holding onto the positive, and berate yourself for it. It's easy to see what you've accomplished, or all the progress you've made, as nothing or as not enough, despite consciously knowing it's not the truth.
"And now it's been six months / And I still miss your touch / But I've found one much kinder / Than I don't have to give to / And I feel / A little bit less alone." In the midst of the introspection, in the confusion and uncertainty, there's hope, there's light, and you can see it in those lines. They've found a better choice in sobriety, in something positive to hold on to when they're feeling alone that helps them. For me, that hope & light I hold on to when I feel I'm in the darkest of places, or when I feel like I'm spinning out of control, is writing. Writing about music, about love, about anything at all helps me. I have this magazine (and I write for two other publications), I have physical journals - I always have at least one notebook with me and one book too, I have a personal writing blog, and I write in the books I read, making little annotations, putting my own feelings & opinions in the margins. I have words anywhere and everywhere, in my head, on the page, in digital spaces. Words from other people have always helped me, and as I've grown up, I've found out that my own words can bring me just as much peace & clarity.
I could go on and on about how this song makes me feel, about how I relate to it and why I love it, but I think I've made my point. I love this track, this song came to me at a time when I needed to hear something like this exactly. Mae Krell is a fantastic songwriter and singer, and I am excited to hear their future releases.
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